No merchant was allowed to “carry any quantity of silver” out of the country. The important feature of the trade of India from the reign of Akbar was the commercial activity of the English and the Dutch, who gradually established factories in widely distributed centres. As the demand for the costly European goods was confined to the wealthy, the European merchants had to import bullion from home to purchase Indian commodities in spite of strong criticism in England against this practice. Moreland’s contention that the European traders in India during the Mughul period had not “matters all their own way” is supported by numerous references in the factory records of the time. While they had to experience difficulty in dealing with Indian merchants and brokers, who were, “generally subtle and clever”, and with commercial monopolies, the chief obstacle in their way was the interference of the local governors and other high officers. As an instance, we may note the evidence of an English letter of 1659 to the effect that Mir Jumla had caused the doors of the English factory at Cassimbazar to be closed, and had forbidden anybody to trade with the English, until they had paid him a formal visit. The European traders spared no pains to humour and satisfy these officers in a variety of ways; sometimes they could gain their objects and sometimes they were disillusioned.
Economic Deterioration after the Reign of Aurangzeb
With the closing years of the reign of Aurangzeb, the economic prosperity of India deteriorated as a natural sequel to the disappearance of peace and political order. The incessant wars of the reign, bankruptcy of the administration and exhaustion of the exchequer, made maintenance of peace and order impossible; and consequently agriculture, industries, and trade were so badly affected that for some time trade came almost to a standstill. During the years 1690-1698, the English could not procure sufficient cloths for their shipping. “Thus ensued,” observes the historian of Aurangzeb, “a great economic impoverishment of India not only a decrease of the ‘national stock’, but also a rapid lowering of mechanical skill and standard of civilisation, a disappearance of art and culture over wide tracts of the country.” Though comparatively free from wars, Bengal was put to a great economic strain as the revenues of the subah financed the Deccan wars of Aurangzeb and were sorely tapped by the rapidly declining Mughul Empire.
The economic decline of the country began much earlier than 1757, but a number of causes accelerated it, especially in Bengal, during the eighteenth century, which is indeed the “darkest age ” in the economic history of India. The weakness of the central government, court revolutions and conspiracies, the terrible Persian inroad of 1738-1739, the ravages committed by the Marathas, the Himalayan tribes, the Mugs and the Portuguese pirates, the abuse of dastaks and other trade privileges by the servants, agents and gomastas of the English Company in their private trade, the Company’s monopoly of some of the articles of prime necessity like salt, betelnut and tobacco, the oppression of merchants and weavers for the sake of a rich return on the investments of the Company, the huge drain of wealth out of the country since 1757, the oppressive revenue-farming system, and currency disorders– all combined to bring about the economic ruin of the country. To add to these, the gradual supplanting of the Nawab’s government by the East India Company, and the consequent disbandment of armies and disestablishment of courts and native secretariats, threw many people out of employment, who joined the ranks of the professional robbers and criminal tribes, and produced general lawlessness and insecurity during the post Plassey period. In May, 1765, the Select Committee beheld Bengal as a “presidency divided, headstrong and licentious, a government without nerves, a treasury without money, and service without subordination, discipline, or public spirit . . . amidst a general stagnation of useful industry and of licensed commerce, individuals were accumulating immense riches, which they had ravished from the insulted prince and helpless people, who groaned under the united pressure of discontent, poverty and oppression”. The dual government of Clive and his two inefficient successors, Verelst and Cartier, made confusion worse confounded, and the terrible famine of 1770 filled the cup of popular misery. After 1772, when the Company’s government decided “to stand forth as the Diwan”, attempts were made by Warren Hastings and Cornwallis to remove some of these evils, but many years more were to elapse before a new order could be brought into existence.
ln Mughul India there was nothing like the modern system of education established and maintained by the State. But primary and secondary education of some sort existed. The rulers themselves, as well as many of the grandees, encouraged such education by grants of lands or money to mosques, monasteries and individual saints and scholars. Thus almost every mosque had a maktab attached to it, where the boys and girls of the neighbourhood received elementary education. Hindu Sanskritic and vernacular schools also continued to function for the benefit of students in the urban as well as rural areas.
The Mughul rulers of India were patrons of education. It is stated, on the authority of the Tawarikh of Sayyid Maqbar Ali, a minister of Babur, that one of the duties of the Public Works Department (Shuhrat-i-Am) of that ruler’s time was the building of schools and colleges. Humayun, though indolent and addicted to opium, had a passion for study, his favourite subjects being geography and astronomy; and his fondness for books was so great that he always “carried a select library with him”. He caused a mardrasa to be established at Delhi and changed the pleasure -house built by Sher Shah in the Purana Qila into a library. “Akbar’s reign marks a new epoch for the system introduced for imparting education in schools and colleges”. He built colleges at Fathpur Sikri, Agra and other places. With a view to improving the state of Muslim education, he effected certain changes in its curriculum, which it would be unreasonable to say produced no effect at all. As a matter of fact, Abul Fazl referring to its good results, writes that ” all nations have schools for the education of youths; but Hindustan is particularly famous for its seminaries.”
